(HOST) With property crime apparently increasing in many places – including here – commentator Susan Cooke Kittredge has been thinking about the conflicting impulses of locking up – and letting in.
(KITTREDGE) From reading the papers and listening to the news, it appears that home burglaries are on the rise in Vermont.
I have never locked the door to my house; it’s just something that our family hasn’t done. My parents didn’t lock their apartment in Manhattan and my husband’s family not only didn’t lock the door, they usually left it ajar.
When our car was stolen thirty years ago, the police didn’t have a lot of sympathy for us when we admitted that they keys had been in the ignition.
But after listening to my neighbors who have been recently robbed, I’ve started locking the door. The trouble is I often lock myself out; this new way of living isn’t easy for me. Hearing that the things generally stolen are computers, jewelry and cash-easily pawned items – I start looking around the house. When I leave home for the supermarket, should I put my computer under my bed? Should I sequester away all valuables and bring them out only for what? Christmas? Surely if I hide them I will forget where they are stowed.
I have started to feel like a dog circling in upon itself before sleep; I feel protective and tight and it’s not comfortable. So I wonder if rather than hiding everything of value in my house I should get an alarm system for the perimeter. These are common and effective and provide, I’m sure, a sense of security but I am saddened to take this step.
Our house may be secure but I hate the feeling of walling off the world this way; it smacks of "us" and "them," of good guys and bad guys and I’m reminded of that public service message from the 1960s that – even then! – was trying to get me lock my car. "Lock your car; take your keys; don’t help a good boy go bad." As if only men could steal.
When we arm ourselves against intruders, whether as individuals or as nations, we perpetuate a dynamic of separation and hostility. I can lock my house and feel secure but I will also feel less free and open and trusting. We don’t substantially reduce the number of robberies by barricades but by addressing the causes of the crimes, by facing the people who, out of desperation or fear or hollowness, are driven to such acts. Increasing economic and social divides, unrelenting financial hardship, and desperation drive people to do awful things.
So as we lock the doors to our houses, maybe the call is to open others, to stand up against cuts to social services, to become Guardians Ad Litem, to mentor children in need, to guide and support those recently released from prison and provide shelter for refugees.
Deep down there is a little Statue of Liberty in us all; now we just need to figure out how to lift our lamps beside our locked and golden doors.
(TAG) You can find more commentaries by Susan Cooke Kittredge at VPR-dot-net.